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Chapter 9
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The next day Darcy sports a wicked hangover, and perhaps more acceptance of her situation. Logan might be all piss and vinegar, and, as she discovered last night, shit with boundaries on some points, but he has succeeded in giving her a little perspective on things. Plus there's the simple fact that the sooner they get these damn components rebuilt, the sooner she can storm back to New York and give Steve Rogers a piece of her mind. And then hopefully, a piece of a few other things.
"...The heat go out?" She asks, once the day has melted into evening. Darcy and Betty took their dinner down to the lab with them, and reaching for her fork, Darcy's found it to be ice cold. Betty looks up at the vents, frowning, tugging her cardigan closer.
"Ugh, not again," She sighs, gathering up her plate. "Better go back up to the fire 'til they have a look...wait." They both take pause, as noise begins to echo down from above them. Gun shots, Wolverine shouting for the two of them to stay in the bunker, and then the sound of his claws coming out.
"Fuck," Darcy dives for her bag, grabbing her gun and watching as familiar, white crystal begins forming, snaking down through the vents, around the edges of the elevator doors. She and Betty look at each other, and following a weird impulse that probably ends up saving her life, Darcy turns and takes aim at her own laptop, firing off a few rounds before the doors slide open.
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That same night in Stark Tower, Steve has made a terrible life decision. Having found Darcy's scribbled list of films in a cardigan pocket (he might have been trying to see if the smell of her shampoo still clung to it, guilty), he'd decided to pick one to watch, to see if it made him feel as if she were any closer. He'd picked the one titled 'Atonement', because there'd been a small heart by it on the list, as there'd been by Stalag 17.
Steve really wants to know Darcy's logic behind that one. He had expected another light-hearted bit of wartime humor. What he got instead was abject misery. Not to mention a fine example of a worst case scenario, regarding his own situation. "Okay, okay, I get the picture," He moaned into his hands, to no one in particular, as the film ended. Volstagg waddled over to flop onto his feet, nuzzling his ankles. The mutt has been annoyed with Cap ever since Darcy left, so this is a comfort. Steve reaches down, scruffing his ears, just before Fury's voice breaks through the dark calm of the Tower.
"Avengers, assemble in the briefing room. Dress warmly."
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"Ugh, really? Kidnapping? Don't they know this never ends in the bad guy's favor?" Are the first words Darcy groans out, rolling over in the darkness. It's warm, at least, and the mat she's lying on smells brand new, or at least freshly laundered. Well, way to break the mould there. The cell, from what she can see, is very much like their brig in the Tower. Small, pristine, with some kind of shiny, sterile steel making up the walls, ceiling and floor.
Her eyes adjust to the small amount of light coming in from somewhere near the doorway. There's another figure lying on another mat, across the room from her. A shapeless lump, rising unevenly with every breath, seemingly asleep. Betty is already up and standing, squinting through the eight-by-four sliver of a window in their vault of a door.
"Can you see anything?" Darcy asks, biting her lip. The last thing the recalls is gas filling the bunker, and suddenly becoming very well-acquainted with the floor, and then blackness. Betty sighs.
"Just more hallway," She murmurs, "They were dragging Logan by a little while ago, though. I don't want to know how they managed to knock out The Wolverine...he's alive, though."
"Awesome," Darcy swallows, mentally putting on her armor. Logan is a big boy, with incredible healing powers, she'll let herself worry about him once they know what's going on. She pushes herself up to stand, peering outside as well. The hall is just like the room, shining steel, no indication of what sort of structure they're being held in. "Well at least we know who's got us," She notes evenly, and Betty nods, "How did they know about the bunker, though?"
"I think he can probably answer that." Betty replies softly, nodding toward the figure in the corner. Her eyes now fully adjusted, Darcy creeps over to the mat softly, drawing back the edge of the blanket and barely holding in a cry of surprise, and distress. Lying there, his breathing shallow, his skin an almost deathly shade of pale, was Phil Coulson.
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Captain America is the first one off the jet, jogging across the snow with brisk purpose, his face stony. Behind him a slew of agents plus Clint and Bucky follow, the two sharp-shooters pretending they're not eying each other with vaguely veiled dislike. Tony and Natasha have remained in New York, in case someone thinks to take the Tower by surprise, but the emergency coms are silent as Steve scans the Alberta site.
The bodies of SHIELD agents are scattered outside of the cabin, black and red against the white snow. "He's got a good shot with him," Bucky notes, kneeling by one of the fallen agents, touching the wound at her temple lightly. He's come a long way since his first full memory returned. They're still keeping a close eye on him. But Steve really doesn't think he's just being optimistic by putting in a hard vote of confidence in his best friend, taking him out on recon. He really does see James Barnes behind those eyes now, where before it was as if someone else had taken over. Now he sees Bucky...a rougher, more jaded Bucky, but still. "We got a list of who's still missing from the big bad list of badasses?"
"Yeah, I need to give it another good look over, I think," Steve licks his lips, keeping his breathing even as he leads them forward, into the building. The cabin is a wreck inside, the signs of a scuffle everywhere. The furniture is toppled, shot through with bullets and clawed into here and there by Wolverine's distinctive claws. The cupboards are a mess of bullet holes as well, and every window is shattered. There's blood on the floors, and the panic starts rising in Cap's chest. He rushes toward the elevators, boots crunching over crushed crystal.
Blessedly, there's no blood in the bunker, aside from what was tracked down from above. There's a faint scent of some foul gas lingering, and it looks as if most of the equipment was taken...Steve pauses by Darcy's pink laptop, running a hand over the bullet holes. He can't help smirking, knowing she'd done it herself. The only other complete library of Jane's notes is back in New York, in a flash drive Tony keeps under a potted cactus. Darcy had protected the research. Once again, Steve finds himself wondering why he ever thought she couldn't handle herself, even as his gut churns at the thought of what might be happening to her.
"No sign of Wolverine or the girls," Clint confirms, leaping down and having a look around at the bare lab, "I'm not ashamed to tell ya Cap, I'm kinda...not looking forward to whoever was able to put down Logan."
"He can be sedated easily enough, but it'd have to be really, really strong stuff," Steve muses, looking around, "They were watched first, only way I can think they'd know he was here." His elation over the good chance that Darcy was still alive somewhere is dropping fast, though, realizing that it meant wherever they were, it was with an enemy they hadn't been able to track steadily, until he was already inside of Stark Tower and killing Jane. "...How the hell are we gonna find 'em, though?"
"Well," Bucky pipes up, also following them down, landing lightly on his feet. Clint is studiously unimpressed, "For one, without that ol' glass jar the geezer carried around, he won't be as cloaked from our view." He points out, "...And I can at least give you a description of the inside of his lair."
"Just the inside?" Cap eyes his friend. Winter Soldier nods once.
"I was brought in blind. Still," He shrugs, "I might be able to give some good guesses of its whereabouts, judging by where they found me when they did pull me in."
"And you didn't say this sooner because...?"
"Hey, I only remembered you were my best friend a couple of days ago, buddy." Bucky smirks.
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It's a while before they're brought out of their cell. Darcy tries to count doors, keep track of hallways, the way she'd been taught by both SHIELD and a cop who spoke to her 1st grade class about kidnappers. But everything is so uniform, so perfectly similar that even her photographic memory is tried. Betty keeps her head high, unimpressed by the small handful of assassins leading them forward. And these were the ones who hadn't been brainwashed, either. These were the ones still working for this guy, whatever he was, because they liked carnage and getting paid.
Betty wasn't afraid. It made it easier for Darcy to pretend not to be, too.
They aren't treated roughly, though. No shoving, or leering, just the occasional nudge with a cruel looking rifle, until they reach their destination. They're led into a large, dome-shaped room, in the center of which stands a bare-bones recreation of a Foster Generator. Darcy stares, jaw dropping. Someone's been studying pictures very closely. It has none of the actual components to open a wormhole, but the structure itself is a perfect twin of the one resting in Stark Tower.
Two figures are standing by the skeleton machine. A tall, broad mercenary, whom Darcy recognizes from the files she'd been studying through the beginning of February, a hard-looking, dark-skinned woman with a thin mouth. Behind her looms the man...alien...thing...who killed Jane, a cloaked figure in black and grey who seems to shift and shimmer at the edges, as if he's not quite fully inside of this reality. His broken reliquary still hangs from his arm.
"The Shifter gives you his greetings," The woman speaks, monotone and flat despite what was probably a very beautiful accent otherwise, her eyes empty. Squinting, Darcy can just make out the tendrils of shadow that connect her to the silent, hooded being. "He would tell you this himself, but your scientist damaged his ability to speak, to control many at once. Her destroying the machine made him lose his temper there for a moment," She gives a frighteningly bad parody of a smile, "I'm Lydia Gray. Until the repairs on his instrument are complete, I speak for him."
"But not of your free will," Betty points out, boldly. The woman tilts her head.
"I offered myself up," She says simply, and then motions to the machine. "The Shifter desires to go home. You will aid us this time, Miss Ross. Miss Lewis."
"He wants more than that," Betty's eyes narrow, "Don't think I didn't hear him back in New York, he wants to claim the greatest warriors from every realm, and then go back and invade those realms, am I right?" Gray presses her lips together even further, and the tendril behind her seems to flicker almost angrily.
"Regardless of his purposes. You can still buy your lives," She goes on, sharply, "Build the missing pieces to the gate."
"Even if I wanted to, I have none of Dr. Foster's research any more," Betty shrugs. She was kind of Darcy's hero at the moment, so calmly and politely giving the verbal middle finger. But this just made the mercenary woman smile again.
"You have her assistant," She says simply, pointing to Darcy.
"And who says I remember any of it?" Darcy replies, calmly, hands in her pockets.
"We know you do, you would not have been sent otherwise," Gray maintains, "And we are also quite prepared for you both to be...less than forthcoming with your information." Darcy swallows, and then does what she does best. Darcy makes a movie reference.
"So it's to be torture, then? I can handle torture." She quotes, in her best Dread Pirate Roberts voice. Well, at least Betty smiles. So does Lydia Gray, but it's far from warm.
"Nothing so simplistic," She lifts her head, and Darcy is put in mind of the creepiest sort of nightmarish marionette. "You are both dedicated. You are both strong. You love men whom you know it is unsafe to love. You might not die for SHIELD, no. But you would die for your world, for those whom you love." Darcy suddenly feels her guts churn at that, willing herself not to let it show on her face. Had they gotten her parents? Isaac, her brother?
"Should you refuse, it will be the agent in your cell who will suffer."
At that, though, Darcy's face goes hard again. "No one knew more about the sacrifice his work required than Phil Coulson. He'll probably pull the trigger for you, and smile like the smooth badass he is while he does." Again, that godawful, inhuman smile was on the mercenary's face, the tendrils controlling her now whisping around her whole form in glee.
"Not if it were pointed at his wife, and their child."
Darcy shuts her eyes tight. Shit.
"His new wife is in their home, thinking her husband simply gone on business. With a word, she can be brought here, though. A woman six months with child."
"...Fuck you, and the wormhole you came in on," Betty shocks Darcy by outright growling, glaring at the hooded figure behind Gray, "Get us a damn workspace."
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